Electric Corsa Is £11k Dearer Than Petrol Version
By Paul Homewood
When I looked at electric car prices the other day, it was pointed out that finance deals for the Nissan Leaf appeared to be cheaper relative to petrol. I have therefore had a look at Vauxhall’s finance deals for the Corsa-e, which can be directly compared to the Corsa petrol.
Both models are the bottom of the range SE:
Corsa-e SE NAV Premium
.
Corsa SE1.2 Petrol
To summarise the difference:
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Difference |
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Electric | Petrol | Difference | Excl £2500 Govt Subsidy |
| OTR | 24140 | 15815 | 8325 | 10825 |
| Total payable | 26594 | 17337 | 9257 | 11757 |
| Total excl final payment | 15266 | 11063 | 4203 | 6703 |
| Final payment | 11328 | 6274 | 5054 |
Excluding govt subsidy, the electric model is around £11K dearer, whether financed or not.
What is noticeable though is that the optional final payment is £5054 higher for the electric version. Vauxhall appear to be gambling that second hand prices in four years time for electric will be much higher now than they appear to be now.
Assuming they are right, all it means is that some of the extra £11k cost ends up being paid by second hand buyers, rather than all being incurred by the new car buyer.
What does not change is the fact that the electric Corsa is £11K dearer.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
As the years go by, the gap gets wider. Electrics are NOT getting cheaper; they are becoming even less competitive with petrol cars.
Not entirely bad news, Paul. At £1.25/litre for petrol at 40mpg and about 4 mile/kWh for electric at £0.15/kWh, petrol would be (in round numbers) £1100, electricity £300, a saving of £800 to offset against the £11K. Still a very poor return on capital, though.
This isn’t a calculation included in a paper put to my council’s cabinet asking for approval to purchase electric vans. Naturally, nobody voting YES asked the awkward question.
Only because EV owners do not pay the 70% Fuel duties that FF owners have to pay.
You won’t find any £800 savings when that has to be replaced.
Exactly.
200%. 70% of retail cost. Get your facts straight.
The fuel saving could be greater. Judging by EV forums a lot of owners are on tariffs which cost 5p per KWh for 4 or 5 hours in the middle of the night.
While that doesn’t do much for the purchase case, it means that the monthly cost is a bit lower for the e-Corsa.
However the big savings are in company cars: the user pays many thousands less in tax.
You seem not to be getting it, Mr Hig. Most of fuel cost is TAXES, not fuel. At some level of penetration, electrics will have to start paying equivalent taxes to petrol cars. Lower cost of operation is illusory; the tax system just hasn’t caught up yet.
And what do you think will happen to those tariffs when millions of people are plugging in at night? And when it’s not surplus generation because it’s all renewables and they may well not generate at night?
It’s deluded to believe that prices stay the same when the prices changes completely.
Gamecock: I “get it” completely on fuel taxes. Yes, the tax system will catch up sooner or later. Until it does, the analysis stands.
Anyway, as I said, the big bucks are in the income tax savings for company car users.
The fact that so few buy EVs despite all of these subsidies, which probably add up to £10k over 5 yrs, shows just how useless they really are!
Leasing looks like a better bet for EVs unless you want to do big mileages.
One example here…
https://www.edfenergy.com/electric-cars/leasing/vauxhall-corsa-e
The electric one is almost hot hatch fast off the lights so it would be better to compare to a zippier version and make sure spec. is the same.
Vauxhall Corsa 1.2 Turbo SE Nav Premium is £17805
Diesel version is £19015
Both are slower accelerating than the electric version 0-60 but still a lot cheaper.
Insurance group is quite a lot higher for the electric versions – a hidden additional cost for some possibly.
In 48 years of driving I have only ever owned one new car, all of my cars have been second hand older, petrol vehicles Currently I own a 1994 Ford Mustang GT Convertible with a 5 litre, V8 engine, I drive it about 500 miles a year on a classic car insurance, during the summer months. My day to day runner is a 2003 Mercedes Benz E500, also with a 5 litre V8 engine, my ex wife and I share this car. We live about a mile apart and between us drive about 5000 miles pa.
What is better for the environment, scrapping these amazing cars and buying a new EV or continuing to use them?
Cutting through the BS is not an easy task, yes charging an EV from renewable energy is carbon neutral, but the 15,800 tons of CO2 in building them compared to 9000 tons of CO2 for a normal car, is a large discrepancy. This discrepancy becomes even larger when the lifespan of the battery pack is taken into account.
Electric vehicles are totally outclassed in hot countries where air conditioning is necessary and cold countries, where there is no waste heat, to stop the car’s occupants from shivering. The heat has to be from draining the battery pack, shortening its lifespan even more!
Once more we have the smoke and mirrors from the Green movement.
Finally why are the deluded concerned about fossil fuels returning CO2 into the atmosphere from where it originally came, at a time when there was no ‘climate crisis’?
Andrew,
while charging an electric vehicle from renewable enrgy is carbon neutral, that is not happening. Currently and for some time to come they are powered by gas fired generation, and some coal generation. This is due to how the grid works, extra load is met with dispatchable generation, i,e fossil fuelled. Essentially the government has jumped the gun and should have made electrcity generation carbon dioxide free before mandating that we can only buy electric vehicles after 2030. My belief is that we can never significantly reduce the CO2 emissions from generation and have a reliable grid. It cannot be done with renewables, nuclear is hobsons choice.
I have been in correspondence since early February with both the DVLA and the department for business, BEIS, challenging their description of electric vehicles as being zero emissions. The DVLA finally said that it was the responsibility of the BEIS and passed the buck.If my statement above was incorrect they would, by now, I’m sure have corrected me. I’m still waiting for a sensible answer from the BEIS.
I
Iain R: spot on! I have been making the same point on various sites for a while.
EV advocates like to make claims based on using “renewable” electricity or on the average grid mix but neither basis is valid. Opting for an EV puts an incremental load on the grid which would not arise with an ICE car. As you say, that load will be met by the “swing generator” as all of the nuclear and renewables are always fully-allocated. Pointing out that EVs are powered by gas – or even coal – is not well-received!
The term “govt subsidy” should no be used. The govt does not have any money. It is a subsidy forcibly confiscated from us taxpayers to fund wealthy EV owners.
As demand for Li and Co go up so will prices
But will the subsidies?
Depreciation is very high on EVs, apart from Tesla. I would wager the final payment is greater than the car will be worth in four years.
If VX takes the car back they can probably scrap the car, and still sell the motor and battery pack as a refurbished or lightly used replacement, for more than the final payment.
The final payment is optional ( to keep the car) or you walk away or more likely get enticed into another deal on another car
The higher optional payment for electric is because the electric car is worth more at the end . If they priced it too low you would pay them the money and on sell for a profit.
No the final payment is a bet on what the value will be. Nobody knows. It is in this example a way of keeping the monthly payments lower in the hope resale values will be higher. But the notion that the price of a second-hand car will substantially higher than now is a fantasy – prices are set by economic demand i.e. how much people can afford. How exactly are we going to be able to pay £5,000 extra? That implies prices of second-hand cars almost double – how would that happen?
Which means that the higher cost is paid by the second hand buyer
Phoenix, all these cars electric or petrol or whatever have a guaranteed price at the end of the term under this sort of deal.
Yes its estimated , but the experience from say a 1 million cars per year sold this way shows they are mostly right . Its a future value which is still a long way down from current value say 50%, so Im not sure where you get the idea its ‘worth more’ in 4 years.
In finance and insurance future values are used all the time, theres an ‘industry’ doing it.
If you think its a bad deal for the car company and they will lose out , go ahead buy one now. I wouldnt really go for a new car when say a low mileage 4 yr old sems a better deal for me.
I would jump at the chance for an even cheaper 4 yr old petrol Corsa ( not really but you know what I mean)
Herd mentality means those electric cars will be worth more than their electric equivalents. Ive seen that with SUV types costing more than a far more suitable equivalent station wagon.
The government subsidy is outrageous. And how can they expect prices to fall to ICE levels when they don’t have to?
Therein lies the heart of the problem with any gov. subsidy or mandated purchase (like insulation), it just causes inflation in the costs as excess profit is taken all down the line, it rarely ends up benefiting the intended, although customers are often deluded thinking they are getting a bargain whilst paying same/more!
I note the Nissan Leaf depreciates £5000 a year for 3 years. IONITI and other public chargers charge >50p a KWh. Way more expensive than diesel. Home charging @ c. 15p the only option. Be rich.
Irrespective of Government subsidies until the true market prices for electric cars are close to petrol there will be no general move towards them, which is presumably why Mercedes and Honda are not committed to going all electric. The Climate emergency and NetZero could be exposed as a fallacy within the next three years long before any compulsion to buy electric.
The other real problem for all EVs is range. Leafs have a range of perhaps 70 miles in summer (much less in winter). That means no one after 2035 will be able to travel more than 30-40 miles from home before having to turn back. Then waiting overnight to recharge for the next day’s journey. Then during the night the battery is draining by a neighbour doing their washing on a night timer – courtesy Smart Metering. What fun it will be!